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Wilde's Aesthetics in Consumer Culture and Orientalism
Author: Chouying Katrien van der Kuijp
Faculty Mentor: John G. Peters, Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences Department and College Affiliation: Department of English, Department of History, College of Arts and Sciences; Honors College
Wilde's Aesthetics 2
Abstract:
This thesis is an examination of nineteenth-century writer Oscar Wilde and his philosophy of
aesthetics surrounding consumer culture and Orientalism in late Victorian England. In order to
share the theories of aesthetics that he learned from the movement's predecessors with a wider
audience, he immersed himself in writing, editing, and theatre production, and promoted his
ideals through his lecture tour, social activity and published works. My research focuses on the
social history of Wilde's background with aesthetics, and the important roles that consumer
culture and Orientalism play in Wilde's writings. Consumer culture was booming due to the
shrinking gap between the wealthy and the impoverished and because of opening trade in Japan
and China. As a result, Orientalism became popular with consumers and artists; its ideas even
influenced Wilde's aesthetics and written works.
Wilde's Aesthetics 3
Introduction
Oscar Wilde left a cultural legacy of decadent style and sparkling witticisms. Today, his
works are widely read in high school and university educational settings. His passionate rhetoric
surrounding aesthetics and modern society encompassed and influenced a variety of artistic
fields, including high art, fashion, decorative arts, theatre, and literature. Wilde was an
international "spokesman for aesthetics" (Ellmann 157) and firmly believed in the importance of
sharing ideals of high culture with mass society, which he was able to do due to the social
upheaval that characterized Victorian England. Wilde promoted the ideals that he learned from
the Aesthetic movement's predecessors, namely the Pre-Raphaelites and Walter Pater, through
his vigorous participation in social circles and publication of largely well-received written
works. Wilde was extremely socially savvy in his ability to promote himself, his friends, and his
colleagues. Besides describing his aesthetics within a novel, essays, and several plays, Wilde
also endorsed his aesthetics in an American lecture tour and publications such as Pall Mall
Gazette and The Woman's World.
One particular aspect that stands out as an integral part of Wilde's intellectual philosophy
of aesthetics is Orientalism, a tendency to look to the Far East rather than Western civilization as
a perfect example of artistic freedom and aesthetic ideals, as "Nineteenth-century orientalism's
Orient functions as an alternative aesthetic space" (Haddad 2). Orientalism applies to the
booming consumer culture in Victorian England as trade opened in Japan with the Meiji
Restoration in 1867, and both elites and lower classes received Oriental consumer goods as
symbols of the new line of communication between two worlds. Indeed, "... the vogue for
Chinese goods spread widely amongst the aristocracy, and a taste for objects in Chinese style
Wilde's Aesthetics 4
became almost synonymous with nobility" (Chen 40), though a blend of cultures occurred when
"Japanese subjects were not only used in "high" literature and art but also associated with
popular culture, entertainment, and even the consumerist way of life (Zhou 59). Wilde's
aesthetics contributed to the Victorian consumer culture through his influence in art, fashion,
decorative arts, and home furnishings. With that consumer culture arise issues of accessibility,
advertising, and class structure. Besides affecting English society's consumerist trends, Wilde's
aesthetics carried over into his own writing, both fiction and non-fiction. My research, along
with other scholars' investigations, finds examples of his aesthetics and Oriental ideals within
speeches and interviews during his North American lecture tour, his novel, The Picture of
Dorian Gray, and his philosophical essay, "The Decay of Lying"; these examples reveal the
significance of consumer culture's influence within Victorian society and literature at the time.
Student and Professor of Aesthetics: American Lecture Tour and Interviews
Wilde became interested in aesthetics while he was studying at Trinity College in Dublin,
Ireland. He took a course on the subject and studied well-known, esteemed predecessors of
aesthetics from Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato to Pre-Raphaelites like Rossetti
(Ellmann 30). In 1874, Wilde decided to leave Ireland to fulfill his ambitions of further study in
aesthetics in the one city that would allow him to do so to the fullest extent—London, England.
He sat for scholarship-awarding examinations at Oxford in the spring of 1874 and enrolled in
courses that fall (Ellmann 35). In between studying literature and philosophy, Wilde began his
writing career with poetry and conversed with fellow students and colleagues; these discussions
would later inspire the dialogical style of "The Decay of Lying." Understandably, the two
Wilde's Aesthetics 5
individuals whom Wilde was most interested in meeting and studying under were John Ruskin
and Walter Pater because "For an undergraduate with artistic tastes, they were the inevitable
poles of attraction" (Ellmann 47) who later on would greatly influence his own aesthetic
philosophy, spirituality, and writings.
After graduating from Oxford, Wilde continued in London and immersed himself in
society, charming his way through social and literary circles with little money and a large
aesthetic presence. Wilde's reputation as a flamboyant advocate of aesthetics went so far as to
land him the role of an inspiration for satire in Gilbert and Sullivan's 1881 comic opera Patience,
as "[Gilbert] could scarcely ignore Wilde as the most conspicuous representative... and the most
articulate standardbearer of aestheticism at the time" (Ellmann 135). The opera was successful
enough that Richard D'Oyly Carte wanted it to open in the United States that same year; more
importantly, he courted Wilde to promote the opera's American debut with a lecture tour
composed of topics involving "a consideration of 'The Beautiful' as seen in everyday life"
(Ellmann 152). Wilde could not resist this opportunity to make some money and promote
himself and his aesthetic beliefs, especially after the lack of success of his first play, Vera; or,
The Nihilists from the previous year (1880).
America was a new frontier to explore and provided a fresh audience to share his
thoughts on art and society regarding consumer culture and Orientalism. The vagueness in the
direction of these lectures provided Wilde with an open ability to be able to judge this new
American audience's tastes and incorporate them within his own personal beliefs and style.
Perhaps naively so, Wilde "was not prepared for the reporters: there were so many, and they
would ask anything. Nor were the reporters prepared for him" (Ellmann, 158) when he first
Wilde's Aesthetics 6
arrived after his ship docked on American shores. From January to November, 1882, Wilde
embarked on the lengthy lecture tour that took place in both major cities and rural towns across
North America, including the United States and Canada. The tour's appropriately long name
was "The Practical Application of the Principles of Aesthetic Theory to Exterior and Interior
House Decoration, with Observations upon Dress and Personal Ornaments," otherwise known as
"The House Beautiful," (Gere and Hoskins 12). In these lectures, Wilde used his position as a
"self-designated 'professor of aesthetics' as he identified himself on his visiting cards" (Waldrep
xi) as he discussed ways in which the American audience could appropriate aesthetic ideals into
selections of furniture and home decorations. He decried Gothic styles and "the gilt and gaudy"
qualities of French furniture (Gere and Hoskins 92) in favor of a more modern and harmonious
visual look for one's home. In fact, "during the 1870s and 1880s the model aesthetic house was a
created pastiche of linear embellishment and unrelated, exotic formats (Blanchard 87) such as
richly colored tapestries, delicately painted wooden furniture and privacy screens, and porcelain
bowls and vases. This sense of eclecticism transformed a dull, mundane domicile into one that
represented the merging of East and West, though in the privacy of one's home rather than on a
diplomatic scale.
However, as far as interest in Wilde went, locals from the western side of the Atlantic
were familiar with the Aesthetic movement's predecessors, the artists known as the Pre-
Raphaelites, and were curious to learn about Wilde as a new representative of current English
artistic circles (Blanchard xii). Alas, Wilde's gender-bending, effeminate physical appearance
and mannerisms at times startled and put off certain audiences who did not appreciate the fact
that "He dressed to be noticed and entertained with a touch of eccentricity that got him talked
Wilde's Aesthetics 7
about (Gere and Hoskins 12). Though some North Americans did not receive him very kindly, as
"He was mocked as a degenerate in satirical cartoons... and mimicked by Harvard students..."
(Hofer and Scharnhorst 6), more enlightened individuals afforded Wilde with interviews. By
conducting a staggering 98 of them with various publications, newspapers, and magazines (Hofer
and Scharnhorst xi), Wilde shows how influential he really was in terms of sheer breadth of
exposure.
Throughout these interviews, Wilde espoused his own Orientalist aesthetics and often
commented on the wonderful artistic sense of the Japanese and Chinese to a wide range of
readers. He would describe the selections of the furnishings of English aristocratic households in
order to influence the buying power of both American and English masses. In a January 1882
Boston Herald article titled "Oscar Wilde," Wilde remarked, "I am also a great admirer of the
Japanese, of eastern art especially, in which there is a most delicate sense of the beautiful"
(Hofer and Scharnhorst 43). Delicate beauty aptly describes the Eastern ideals which contrasted
with heavier, extravagant Gothic ideas of aesthetic interiors that previously dominated the
decorative arts arena. Moreover, in an interview with New York World on May 6,1882, Wilde
described the artistic value of Orientalism in the developing San Francisco Chinatown as he said:
I found the Chinese quarter in San Francisco most interesting, and, in my opinion, the
Chinese have a decided artistic value... Their quarter is full of artistic motives, and they
have a constant eye to the value of color. We do not value color sufficiently—we do not
recognize the elements of joyousness that color brings into life. (Hofer and Scharnhorst
146)
Wilde's Aesthetics 8
The idea of color in Orientalist furnishings and decorations appears to be important due to "blue-
and-white china, [and] because of its beautiful colour, noble shape and proportioned form, [it]
was one of the best objects to bring an aesthetic sense to a room" (Chen 43). The famous blue-
and-white pattern in porcelain became significant and recognizable example of the
commodification of Oriental goods.
Application of Orientalist Aesthetics in England Society
In England, Orientalism was affecting not only the domestic sphere, but also the public
sphere of theatre. Two plays, Patience (1881) and The Mikado (1885), involved aesthetics and
Orientalism frankly in their productions. A critic favorably commented that "Such plays as
'Patience' and 'the Mikado' have developed our instinct for colour and form," showing that the
plays were as much educational vehicles as caricatures for aestheticism (Fortunato 39). Thus, the
presentation on the desirable quality of color in Japanese-themed and aesthetic plays reveals the
extent to which Orientalism influenced ideas of aesthetics and beauty.
Aristocrats back home in England such as the Whistler and Wyndham families also
typified the ideal audience for beginning Orientalist consumerism: people who desired a large
collection of objects and artifacts to portray a sense of deep transcendence into another artistic
realm never before seen. For these elite homes, "The emphasis is on the creation of a harmonious
yet eclectic whole, not on the specific value of individual pieces. The morning, drawing and
dining rooms at Clouds [the Wyndham's home] were decorated with Oriental blue and white
dishes and jars (Mendelssohn 228). The Clouds home thus exemplified the goal of Victorian
consumers, which became a total immersion in Orientalist objects, which became commodities
in general society. The trend of decorating one's home in such objects from China and Japan
Wilde's Aesthetics 9
thus appeared in society in a top-down fashion, trickling down to diluted, cheapened, and milder
variations created for a mass audience.
When Wilde returned to England after his tour, he continued to write and participate in
social circles to promote himself and aesthetics. He married Constance Lloyd on May 29,1884
in "a wedding in the high aesthetic mode" (Ellmann 249), complete with a wedding dress
designed by the expert of beauty and aesthetics, Wilde himself. In his private life with
Constance, Wilde was also an authority of Oriental ideals and consumerism within his own
home. He was proud of his stylistic tendencies and "Much of what we might see as Wilde's
extravagance—his elaborate decorations for his home and clothing for himself and his wife—
was an attempt to popularize himself as an arbiter of taste" (Waldrep 63). He enjoyed having
visitors and company over to examine his physical manifestations of his aesthetic beliefs. After
all, as he had learned on his lecture tour, "the public buys the image, not the speech [which had]
transformed in the fertile arena of English consumer society" (Waldrep 63). As part of his image
as an Aesthete, much of the furniture, decorations, and fabrics used in his home encapsulated the
splendor of Oriental style that Wilde helped cultivate on his own time. These images of his home
were further popularized by magazines and pictorial editorials; being a man of his word from his
American lecture tour, "Wilde's home was a famous showplace for the more avant-garde ideas
then in vogue about home furnishings" (Waldrep 35).
Orientalist Consumer Culture in The Picture of Dorian Gray
After his lecture tour, interviews, and magazine and newspaper work, Wilde began
writing his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1890, which further espoused his
aesthetic beliefs right from the beginning preface and into the characterization of the infamous
Wilde's Aesthetics 10
Dorian Gray. For Wilde, "Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the
cultivated" (Wilde, Picture 3), and beautiful things definitely included objects of Orientalism.
For Wilde, surfaces were an important part of what can and be considered beautiful in aesthetic
theory. Indeed, "Wilde was interested in elevating the status of the decorative, the superficial
(Fortunato 20) by attributing Orientalism to aesthetics. Thus, the visual aspect of aesthetics is
held as the most crucial sense involved, as beauty can be designated merely by sight. Several
instances of Orientalism within the novel reveal that beauty or aesthetic value can also be
divulged by means of other senses, namely touch and scent.
In the novel, a multiple number of Orientalist goods appear in various forms of home
furnishings in order to present Dorian Gray as an Aesthete and cultivator of beauty beyond that
of his own. He is a man of taste and a student of aesthetics, specifically taught by his friends and
mentors, Lord Henry and Basil Hallward. As Lord Henry arrives at Dorian's house, "the butler
entered with a laden tea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table... Two globe-shaped
china dishes were brought in by a page" (Wilde, Picture 27). Taking notice of the origin of the
table and dishes, the reader will automatically assume that Dorian is of some standing in society,
as his Orientalist objects are neither gaudy nor cheap, which may have been characteristics of
Orientalist items created for the masses. However, Dorian's table is small and the dishes have a
delicate shape that requires specific handling that the help of the upper classes could provide. In
other words, Dorian is uplifted as a member of high society because "The consumption of
Chinese tea identifies the character as educated, graceful, and superior" (Chen 48). In addition to
the furniture and practical use for dishes, Dorian also has a passion for consuming decorative
items in that "he sought to accumulate the most exquisite specimens that he could find of textile
Wilde's Aesthetics 11
and embroidered work... elaborate yellow Chinese hangings... Japanese Foukousas with their
green-toned golds and their marvelously-plumaged birds" (Wilde, Picture 116). Here, Dorian
demonstrates his passion for Orientalist aesthetic consumption by declaring an intention to
collect such items. He envies the naturalistic, beautiful qualities of textiles and what they can
contain: a periscope to an outside, seemingly intangible world other than that which his artifacts
can provide him.
Besides home furnishings, jewels and gems are evoked in The Picture of Dorian Gray to
promote the visual aesthetic value of Orientalist objects. In terms of sparkling gemstones and
jewels, the outer has more importance than any inner quality when it comes to visuality in
consumer culture. Orientalism visually concerns color, delicateness, and purity, especially. Mills
reveals how the consumer culture of jewel and gem collection relates to identity of the Dorian
Gray as a dandy figure obsessed with physical appearance and consumption, and his house-
museum as accommodating his assortment of Orientalist items. Just the way that Basil describes
Dorian in that "The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold," (Wilde, Picture
181), with two distinctly Oriental jewels, refers to a "transformation of the dandy-collector into a
jewel-object" (Mills 158) himself. Thus, Life imitates Art in that Dorian Gray becomes his own
artistic commodity, a jewel, trapped within the boundaries of his own home, where his portrait
binds him forever in a secret pact of hidden identity and fear of disintegrating beauty.
Wilde also inserts Aestheticism into Dorian's dialogue when Dorian asks Basil, "Was it
not Gautier who used to write about la consolation des art si... I love beautiful things that one
can touch and handle. Old brocades, green bronzes, lacquerwork, carved ivories, exquisite
surroundings..." (Wilde, Picture 92). Here, Dorian is referring to Gautier's famous quote, "art
Wilde's Aesthetics 12
for art's sake," which became the unofficial yet widely familiar slogan for Aestheticism.
Arguably, "Wilde tried to sell the Aesthetic living style to his readers" (Chen 47) as Dorian
remarks upon Gautier by relating the French man's writings to his own appreciation for
aestheticism to go beyond the visual and into tactile enjoyment for such Orientalist objects like
brocades and ivories. The sensuous appeal of Orientalism is thus expanded upon with the
extended realm for pleasure, transcending mere outer surface beauty. Besides touch, the sense of
smell is also evoked when considering the scope of the opulent attraction of Orientalist objects.
Dorian insists, "And so now he would study perfumes, and the secrets of their manufacture,
distilling heavily-scented oils, and burning odorous gums from the East" (Wilde, Picture 111),
which further deviates from the strictly visual sensibility of Orientalism, moving it into a more
developed artistic forum. Another example of the olfactory possibilities in conjunction with
visual appeal occurs when Dorian Gray reaches for his opium box before heading out to the
opium dens to smoke it. He describes the box and its contents in vivid detail, specifically
mentioning how:
It was a small Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer, elaborately wrought, the sides
patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with round crystals and tasseled
in plaited metal thread. He opened it. Inside was a green paste waxy in luster, the odour
curiously heavy and persistent. (Wilde, Picture 152-153)
As part of Dorian's eventual downfall, his use of Asian narcotics reveals the dangers in giving in
too much to hedonism and pleasure-seeking, even within an Orientalist realm. Though we have
previously seen instances of Orientalism in consumer goods that have highlighted the benefits of
such a connection from the East to the West, there are obvious parts of it that have the potential
Wilde's Aesthetics 13
for destruction, rather than the creation of beauty, if abused. The murky future of Orientalist
goods is revealed "In Wilde's own tendencies to privilege the Oriental in his writing... he
consistently linked the Asian with... a region of knowledge that was not known to the common
man (Waldrep 41). Chen goes on to say that "commodities... decide who the consumers are"
(Chen 49), which speaks to the obsession and addiction that Dorian Gray has with collecting
Orientalist items, including opium. In this last case of consumption, Dorian is revealed as an
opium-eater, decided upon by his choice of commodity. In other words, Life imitates Art; life is
exemplified through Dorian's choice to consume opium, and art is exemplified through the
appearance of opium as a commodity.
Life Imitating Art in "The Decay of Lying"
Just before the publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde published the first
version of "The Decay of Lying" in 1889 and then an expanded version in Intentions in 1891.
The essay is composed of a dialogue between two individuals, Vivian and Cyril; mostly, Cyril
asks philosophical questions on art and beauty, while Vivian answers them with lengthy
responses. Vivian postulates that lying is an art form due to its ability to prevent "Art
[becoming] sterile, and beauty [passing] away from the land" (Wilde, "Decay" 167). However,
society's quest for absolute truth in facts has led to a decay of the ability for artists to lie in order
to achieve the greatest aesthetic extent. Vivian further explains how the history of decorative
arts, which is the topic that Wilde lectured on during his North American tour, "is the record of
the struggle between Orientalism, with its frank rejection of imitation, its love of artistic
convention, its dislike to the actual representation of any object in Nature, and our own imitative
spirit" (Wilde, "Decay" 175). With regards to home furnishings, the pressure to retain a sense of
Wilde's Aesthetics 14
rote reproduction remained until Orientalism came into the scene. Ultimately, its "frank rejection
of imitation" is a cultural response to the ability of the unknown to provide a new perspective on
aesthetics and artistic representations.
However, the elevation of Orientalist ideals in favor of "our own imitative spirit" calls
into question the idea of the fetish. Gagnier claims that Wilde "turned his audience into
consumers" (Gagnier 109) because his works mainly lent themselves to an educated, literate
class who identified with characters like Dorian Gray or Lord Henry, or others from Wilde's
comic society plays. Furthermore, "In "The Decay of Lying," Wilde could see the West's
fetishism of Eastern ways and peoples in British Orientalism and japonisme" (Gagnier 109).
Gagnier's interpretation is another example of the dark side of Orientalism, in addition to
Dorian's opium-eating. This fetishism has the potential to corrupt the true ideals and meanings
behind pure Oriental objects, and not those coming out of a Western filter to create fake copies
for the masses. Wilde was against such a cultural sieve and focused instead on being able to
distinguish between true aesthetic commodities and false, reactionary copies.
In "The Decay of Lying," Vivian further proposes that there is a separation of real-life
Japanese people and their representation in art that is created for Westerners like himself and
Cyril, who enjoys Orientalist commodities like much of society. Vivian declares that "The
Japanese people are the deliberate self-conscious creation of certain individual artists" (Wilde,
"Decay" 187) such as Hokusai or Hokkei—Japanese-born painters. Artists create archetypes that
people in real life base their personas upon. Moreover, people base their ideals upon what they
see in various mediums of art, such as paintings, fashion, and decorative arts. Furthermore,
Wilde's Aesthetics 15
Vivian claims that "The whole of Japan is a pure invention," so that when traveling to Japan in
an attempt to retain a first-hand look at the country's aesthetic potential, "All [Western painters]
saw, all he had the chance of painting, were a few lanterns and some fans" (Wilde, "Decay"
187). The aesthetic possibilities of Japan thus lie primarily in the country's art by its own artists.
There is no need to spend effort, time, and money to go and physically see a country with one's
own eyes when one has the chance to see what that country's people's lives are based upon, art.
Here, the idea that a human's Life imitates Art comes to the forefront, and Art is the reality that
Life bases itself upon. Vivian is the spokesperson for this anti-mimetic ideal that Wilde espouses
as part of his aesthetics. In the Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, Vivian's ideas also
repeats as "The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality
of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium" (Wilde, Picture 3). The imperfect
medium refers to any man-made creation—furniture that one creates art with, fabric that one
creates art with, or jewels that one creates art with; all of these items are utilized in Wilde's
novel as revealing the morality of Dorian's art. Thus, the advantages of consumerism in art are
shown throughout the essay and the novel.
Wilde further reveals the benefits of consumer culture in the essay by highlighting how
"[Pre-Raphaelite painter] Rossetti's paintings were not just popular visual arts but could be taken
as the guide for women's dress fashion. In other words, the beauty of Rossetti's art could be
realized in a woman's practical life" (Chen 49). Wilde is thus communicating the consumerist
value of art and how art can take on special models to teach society about beauty within a
practical realm. The consumerist value is then applied to written art forms such as The Picture of
Dorian Gray in that "Orientalism also supplies poets with a variety of models, drawn from
Wilde's Aesthetics 16
oriental textiles and architecture as well as literature, upon which to base a modified poetics"
(Haddad 155). Wilde presumably drew from Orientalist tastes when choosing Dorian's home
furnishings and furniture, from which he created a platform to espouse his aesthetic beliefs in
conjunction with Orientalism. In sum, "Wilde formulates the new aesthetic as one of art for its
own sake, unrestricted by either nature or the classical artistic tradition" (Haddad 200). Wilde's
new aesthetic is open, free, and boundless with limited Western influence.
Conclusion
"As an aesthete Wilde found it essential to cultivate more than one art" (Ellmann 33), and
he did so by enthusiastically throwing himself into various artistic and social circles to pursue his
quest for aesthetic achievement throughout the world. His pursuit led him into a world that
escaped the ordinary that English society had to offer; instead, he discovered the realm of
Orientalism and appropriated its aesthetic ideals into his own beliefs. Wilde sought artistic
freedom and "celebrates orientalism as a route to art's freedom from the representation of
nature," (Haddad 155) in that Orientalism can be seen as a new venue for aestheticism. Nature is
now represented in unnatural and artificial ways through its depiction in art and consumer
commodities such as tapestries, furniture, jewels, and porcelain. Perhaps Wilde sees
consumerism as a way of getting away from nature or classical Western artistic tradition since
new boundaries are being formed, forcing people to creatively step away from nature and invent
their own ideas of aesthetics. The fact that Orientalism has stemmed from a Victorian societal
fascination with the newly opened Far East and has also lasted throughout our own contemporary
period speaks to the testament of human curiosity with regards to the unknown or unexplored.
Wilde's Aesthetics 17
Moreover, the fact that Wilde's works are still being thoroughly consumed by readers of
academic source materials all the way to cheap paperbacks goes to show the extent of his
influence on English literature. Wilde's egalitarian ideas surrounding his aesthetics also helped
spread of his influence to a wide audience. Though some disintegration of ideal aesthetics was
inevitable, for the most part, the basic tenets of Wilde's aesthetics were upheld in terms of a
vibrant, bustling consumer culture, evidenced by the 1910 Great Britain-Japan Exhibition.
Fortunato describes the proof of de-exclusivity of aesthetics due to
The fact that aestheticism was tied very palpably to consuming is evinced by [Wilde's]
references to identifiable brand names, those of interior designer E.W. Godwin, the
department store run by Messrs. Liberty, and the "other leading houses of business."
Incidentally, these brands are cited as a sign that consumers are being educated in
aesthetics and taste, a sign of a democratization of a formerly exclusive world.
(Fortunato 37)
Wilde would be proud to know that his art was available to everyone, from the educated elite to
mass audiences, as art is the lens through which people view beauty and develop their own
aesthetic ideals.
Wilde's Aesthetics 18
Works Cited
Blanchard, Mary Warner. Oscar Wilde's America: Counterculture in the Gilded Age. New
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Brown, Julia Prewitt. Cosmopolitan Criticism: Oscar Wilde's Philosophy of Art. Charlottesville:
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Aestheticism." Victorian Network. 1.1 (Summer 2009): 39-54. Web. 5 June. 2011.
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Wilde's Aesthetics 19
Waldrep, Shelton. The Aesthetics of Self-invention: Oscar Wilde to David Bowie. Minneapolis:
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Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray: Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts,
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. "The Decay of Lying." The Soul of Man under Socialism & Selected Critical Prose. Ed.
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